Lifelong Treasure
by deeplyshallow
Summary: The story of the box. 8.01 Spoilers


He just keeps them there for the first few weeks. The items she didn't take away when they broke up; some old clothing left lying around the apartment, the pieces of the plate she threw at him placed in a pile at the corner of the kitchen bench, the tie she bought him because she thought he looked sexy in it is still in his suit room, the tape they made in pride of place among his restored porn collection, he even keeps the Canadian flag (god knows how she smuggled that one in, he's going to put up better boarder controls at the Fortress of Barnitude in the future). It hurts when he sees them, of course it does, and it's not good for slipping back to the joys of singledom, but it reminds him of her, it reminds him that they did have something together even if it fell apart. Somehow that's worth all the pain. Sometimes he thinks it's the only thing keeping him human. If a girl he takes home asks him about them he tells her some lie that he's forgotten by morning.

It's only when Ted comes over one day that he realises he doesn't want them in plain sight – only because it is ruining the look of his apartment mind you – he hastily packs all of the offending items in a box and shoves them at the back of the wardrobe.

That should have been the end of it, it really should have, but he takes the box out again the night she goes on the superdate with Don, closes his eyes and allows himself – for one moment – to remember, then he packs it away again and places it carefully back fully intending to leave it there. Then Robin starts bringing Don up in conversation and it comes out again.

He doesn't look at it often, not really, just once or twice a month. Then there's the week where Robin won't hang round with them and it comes out five times. When she comes back and Don leaves he doesn't stop.

Somewhere along the line he starts adding to it. Just little things that he gets while they're together that remind him of her, like their warning letter for touching the museum exhibits, the boutonniere she told him was sad, the one of the beaver puppets they got out at the hoser hut the night she and Jessica performed, recordings of all her TV programs (even Metro News One – the quality is awful, but the comic relief? priceless) and a copy of all the Robin Sparkles songs of course. He tries to fit the sword that she scared the creepy baby lady with in but it doesn't fit.

He's not quite sure why he puts the photos in, he finds a copy of them one day on his computer and the next moment he's phoned his photo guy and has ordered them printed and framed. He keeps them at the top of the box. He finds he likes them the most (them and the Canadian flag, because really she wouldn't be Robin without her Canadian lameness). They look so happy together. He keeps them on an easy to access file on his computer too.

Taking the box out from time to time becomes a regular occurrence, just part of his life, until he barely thinks anything of it and that there's nothing wrong with it. This continues even when he starts dating Nora.

It all comes to a head when Nora goes to Paris and Robin offers to help clear his apartment. He rushes home in a frenzy that night (because he couldn't refuse her offer, she's been being distant lately and he misses her) calling his storage guy and within the hour he has a garage to put the box into. He puts the key to it on his key chain, who knows when he might need it again?

He certainly needs it to put the mountie costume Robin tried to make him wear at Halloween in the box. He visits several other times for less specified reasons too. The visits increase once Robin starts dating Kevin.

The night he and Nora break up he visits for the longest time, still clinging tightly to his bag of candles and rose petals, he closes the door and simply stares at the pictures for hours wondering where it all went wrong. He visits daily for a few weeks after that, sometimes not for long (because depriving the world of the Barnacle would be a crime), it smells of her and somehow that's comforting, somehow that speaks of the life he wishes he could lead (of course he tries not to think this much – that would make him as lame as Ted, and really a world with two Teds would be horrific.) He thinks about buying the little Canadian onesie to put into it, but really that's a reminder too far.

He tries to calm it down after Christmas, to not go there so much. He fails miserably. Because he still sees her and Kevin every day, he sees them smiling and laughing and kissing and really how else is he supposed to cope? He doesn't want to have to reinvent himself like he did with Shannon all those years ago. He doesn't think he can now.

Quinn is a distraction. She's not a very good one, and a poor substitute for what he really wants, but it works to an extent. He starts visiting the garage only four or five times a week, once only three (which is pretty impressive given _Ted _keeps going on about her). Then Robin and Ted stop talking and she stops hanging around. The visits increase.

He tries to stop. He really does. Even in a state of serious denial it's hard to not claim that this is unhealthy. So he starts hanging out with Ted every night, he tells him it's about Quinn, and maybe it is a little, but mostly it's about where his mind seems to wander whenever he's alone and it's killing him. Not in the way he's used to either. He'd always thought he was too dead inside for it to hurt this much.

The night Robin nearly dies in the helicopter pulls him right back. He stays with the box until the early hours of the morning, sobbing, because a world without her would just be unimaginable and all he would have left would be these pitiful relics. He calls her and tries to tell her how he's feeling. He fails miserably. He carefully cuts out every newspaper story he can find and makes a scrapbook of her rise to fame.

At first he doesn't care too much about what Quinn has done to his apartment. Yeah, it sucks, clearly he needs to train her in his impeccable taste, but really, after everything, at least she's still here – one tiny part of his life is not completely ruined. It's only later that day that he realises that if she's mucked around with all his stuff she might try to look on his computer or phone (to get past security you need an iris scan, a fingerprint scan, voice recognition and a 30 digit password – but you never know) so he hastily photoshops the pictures and transcribes any texts they had to store away. He reads over the messages again, they both seem so happy, they still make him smile.

"Although it kind of sucks seeing how easy it was for you to throw away everything from our relationship. I could never do that." He looks at her, ever so slightly incredulous, because really? Does she think he could ever throw away all of that? He'll never forget the time they were together, not really. But it means something this, because Robin hardly ever says something meaningful to him, and somehow it still brings down all his defences in a way Quinn never will.

He considers for a moment before getting the key out his pocket. He's kept this secret far too long and if there was someone to share it with it would be her, always, "642 West Fourteen Street."

Quinn falls asleep on his shoulder as they ride back from the bar, but he barely notices. Instead he looks at the New York skyline, and thinks about the way Robin reacted to his engagement, the look on her face when he said he'd deleted the relationship from their past and her words _I could never do that_, ring in his head. He wonders if she's arrived yet, what her reaction will be. He hopes, for the first time in forever, that maybe, just maybe, she'll understand. Maybe she knows what he's feeling.

And maybe, even if it is very faint, they still have a chance.


End file.
